Privateer Press was founded by artists who shared a great love for fantasy and science-fiction artwork. The worlds they created and the games that grew out of them have always been driven by a passion for visual creation. The very first book Privateer published—Book I of the Witchfire Trilogy: The Longest Night—received the EN World gold awards for Best Interior and Best Cover artwork for an RPG product for the year it was released, establishing the company as visionary creative studio.

Nearly 20 years and literally thousands of illustrations later, the images that have adorned the games and novels of Privateer Press will finally be collected into a long-anticipated, beautiful art book, sure to become a favored gem in any art lover’s library.

Art books, however, are not a product that has traditionally been a staple offering of game distributors and game stores, which is a big part of the reason Privateer has not previously green-lit this project. As an art book is an expensive undertaking, we have been cautious about producing something unlikely to receive a reception through our traditional distribution channels and that might fail to justify its expense and effort. For this reason, we will be taking this project to Kickstarter on January 14th, which will allow us to tailor the size and scope of the book, as well as its print run, to the precise demands of the audience who has long desired it.

What’s Going to Be in the Book?

The Art of Privateer Press will be a 9˝ x 11 7/8˝ hardback book (dimensions of final may vary), printed in portrait orientation on 80# paper with a spot-varnish finish on the cover. A foreword penned by Privateer’s founding owner and Chief Creative Officer Matt Wilson will detail Privateer’s history and its approach to visual creation.

Between the foreword and the final dedication will be wall-to-wall illustrations featuring the best images from all of Privateer’s worlds and games, including the Iron Kingdoms, WARMACHINE, HORDES, Monsterpocalypse, LEVEL 7, Skull Island eXpeditions fiction, and more. The Art of Privateer Press will include hundreds of images from acclaimed artists such as Andrea Uderzo, Susan Luo, Svetlin Velinov, Johan Grenier, Néstor Ossandón, and many, many other talented individuals who have contributed to Privateer’s artwork over the years. The book will be a minimum of 148 pages in length, but how big it can get will only be up to our backers…and the limits of physical reality.

To push those limits, though, we’re creating some exciting rewards, including physical sketchbooks, supplementary digital art books, and a special preview model featuring a character who has been part of the Iron Kingdoms since nearly the beginning…

As you may already know, Riot Quest is an upcoming miniatures game set in the Iron Kingdoms that we’ll share a lot more about next year, but that’s a story for another update. However, we wanted to offer something new to generate excitement for The Art of Privateer Press, and we determined that the Iron Maiden character, affectionately known as “J.A.I.M.s” in the upcoming Riot Quest, was a perfect fit. The first rendition of the Iron Maiden originally appeared in the Monsternomicon way back in 2002. As you can see from the original pen & ink artwork, there was just no way she was ever going to be producible as a miniature, not with all those blades and talons, which is why she’s not made it to the tabletop yet. So, she was reinterpreted for Riot Quest in a fashion that could, in fact, be made into a miniature. And while Riot Quest will be a stand-alone game, all of the miniatures in it will be compatible with WARMACHINE and HORDES, so anyone preordering The Art of Privateer Press with the Iron Maiden miniature will be able to put her on the tabletop long before she’s released next year.

Another reason we wanted to include a miniature as part of the promotion for this art book is because frankly we know waiting months for something to show up sucks, and we really wanted to offer something you could put your hands on sooner rather than later. So, the Iron Maiden miniature will be shipped by the beginning of May, and she will not be available in any other fashion until fall of 2019.

We hope that you will be as excited to get your hands on The Art of Privateer Press as we are and that J.A.I.M.s and our other planned rewards will offer a bit of extra incentive to back this project. The campaign will launch on Kickstarter on January 14th, 2019, and will run through January 24th, 2019, with an expected delivery of fall 2019.

We know this book is long overdue, but the wait won’t be much longer…

Happy Holidays!